Making & Using Seed Tape

Making & Using Seed Tape

A Winter and Spring Activity

Winter gardening activities are challenging to come up with, particularly with preschool aged children.  When I came across information on making seed tape, I knew this would be part of our approach!

 

Start by cutting some paper towels into strips.  The industrial paper towels they have at the preschool work well for this.  Next make a paste with flour and water.  Just mix it until it is the consistency of glue. 

 

We got a sheet of paper and put the seeds of the paper so we could easily see them.

 

 

Put dots of the flour paste on the paper towel strips to mark where you want to put your seeds.  Use a paintbrush for this.  Refer to the seed pack for spacing.  Just know that preschoolers are not super accurate.

For this activity we used carrot seeds, lettuce seeds, beet seeds, and radish seeds.  The benefit with the small seeds is that they stay where planted and do not wash away with the erratic watering methods of preschoolers. 

 

 

 

When we had added seeds to each dot of flour paste and the seed tape was complete, the tape was folded over lengthwise to protect the seeds until we were ready to plant them in the Spring. 

 



 

 

In hindsight, I would have labeled the tapes or at least grouped them by seed type.  The seeds are a little hard to identify once they have dried and cured.

 The children really enjoyed this activity and most kids made several seed tapes.

Fast Forward to Spring!

 

 Each class made several types of seed tape, which we transplanted into the garden.

 

 

 

We started by making a trench using the special colored shovels.

 

 

 

 We placed the seed tapes into the trenches.

 

 

Then we covered the seed tapes with soil.

 

 

 

We did this in several of the garden areas around the preschool.

 

 

Next we watered them in.  Some of the garden beds do not have direct access to water.  We use a utility cart to bring our watering cans (color coded by class) to the hose, fill them up, then take them to the garden!

 

 

 

This is a radish seed tape a week after planting.  So these work!!!

 

 

I would highly recommend this activity to anyone who gardens with kids. 

 

 

Cheers for now!

 

Marti

The Garden Lady



Raised Beds from Repurposed pallets--A Throwback from 2012

Reprinted from my Previous blog in San Diego-2012

Building a RRR (Reduce~Reuse~Recycle) Garden at Cabrillo Elementary

 

Caleb watering the RRR Garden.

My son, Max is a First Grader at Cabrillo Elementary School in San Diego, California. I help out in the classroom quite a bit and I was shocked at how far removed our kids are from the food chain.  This got me thinking.  The first graders should have a first person, hands on experience with their food...and what better way than to start a garden.  The largest issue was that starting a garden is expensive.  Materials, soil, plants and seeds can add up.  Where there is a will, there is a way.

I had been looking on youtube and came across several variations of using a shipping pallet to build a raised bed.  None of the videos were exactly what I was looking for, but they were definitely the catalyst for the project.  I checked on the "Free" section of craigslist and found that a neighbor was doing some landscape work and had pallets to spare.  

I was after a simple method.  My initial thought was to use 2 pallets per bed.  I figured we could just cut the first pallet in half and the second pallet in quarters.  The only issue with this was that I needed my husband's tools (& help) so with that came his vision of the project.  He is more of a perfectionist where I am more of a 'quick and easy as long as it works' type, so we actually did both methods!

Larry assembling the "pretty" version of the boxes.

Larry's idea was to take the pallets apart and reassemble them into the planter boxes.  This method produced much more attractive planter boxes, but it was a pain in the neck.  We used a nail pry bar to loosen the boards and then took them apart.  We removed all of the nails, since they would be used by kids and reassembled the boards with an impact driver (like a drill & screwdriver combo) into a finished box.

Small box made of left over short boards.

The other added advantage to Larry's method is that the boards are close together so the soil will stay in the boxes without additional steps.  For another class of older kids, we made the box Larry is working on (above) that was square, about 42 inches on each side.  For the First Graders, we made them about 42 inches by 21 inches or a half pallet by a quarter pallet.  We did this because we wanted the kids to be able to reach into the boxes.

Two of the finished boxes.

My method was to cut the pallet in half (Larry used a sawzall to cut through the board and nails) and used the short scraps (like 1/4 pallet size) to form the sides using the impact driver and screws.  Although this was much faster, the main drawback  was that there are gaps between the boards of a pallet, so cardboard was needed to line the inside of the boxes to keep the dirt in as pictured above right.

Larry & Max at Miramar Landfill.

So now we needed to fill these boxes.  Because the area that they were being placed was on asphalt, they needed to be fairly tall so that the roots of the plants wouldn't be scorched.  We filled the the bottom half of the boxes with composed hay, left over from the school's 71st annual Halloween Carnival.

As much free compost as you want...Max was in heaven!

The top portion was of each box was filled with FREE compost from our city's landfill.  Basically, they take the green waste collected from households and turn it into compost, which is then offered for free to any resident of San Diego.  Check your city to see what's offered in your area.

Finished Product!

 So our next step was to plant out the boxes.  Since it was nearing the end of the year, we needed items that would grow fast.  I had sprouted some sunflower seeds from raw seeds at Trader Joes.  The only issue is you know you're going to get a sunflower, but not sure what variety...giant or dwarf.  The plus is that you get thousands of seeds for about $1.50 and can eat the rest.

The kids then each got to plant beans, radishes or lettuce, all of which grow pretty fast.  Our local Crown-Ace hardware donated the marigolds and tomato plants.

Cabrillo Elementary School First Grade RRR Garden Area.
Box on the left contains yellow squash, sunflowers & marigolds.
Box on the right contains sunflowers, beans, radishes,
lettuce, tomato,marigolds & pinwheels keep the birds away!

Brianna, Jennifer, Margarita & Miguel.

 As part of the curriculum, the kids made observations on the things they had planted, including drawings!  In the red tub, each kid threw in a hand full of birdseed and made predictions as to what would grow.  We got predictions on everything from a peach tree to watermelon...lol!  The green pots are potatoes, which grow green plants very quickly.

Overall, the RRR Garden Project at Cabrillo Elementary was a success.  The kids have a better understanding of where food comes from and the classes next year are set up to do the same.  On the last day of school, each kid got to take home a plant from the garden.  They were so proud of their accomplishments..."I grew this!"

Brandon & Reggie watering the garden &
making observations in their Science notebooks.

Officially Spring--March in the LA Up Garden

Spring 2015

March 2015 in the gardens at La Petite Academy and LA Up are off with a bang!  One of the best ways to ensure that kids are engaged is to have tools and supplies that are exciting to them.  The colored shovels are just the ticket!  The pink shovels prove to be the most popular with both the girls and the boys!

The LA Up program added a new garden bed where a sandbox formerly stood.  We used 6 bags of top soil to amend the already prepared bed.  Since there is not irrigation (or an easy way to add it) near these beds, we used a technique of burying recycled plastic bottles to water at the root level.

 The morning session planted banana peppers, spaghetti squash, patty pan squash, yellow cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas (a favorite), strawberry popcorn and morning glories to climb the fence.

The afternoon class planted on the other half of the bed.  They also planted strawberry popcorn!  They planted peppers, cherry tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, purple beans and morning glories to climb the fence and watered it all in!

 The kids really do enjoy the upkeep of the garden!  When do you see a group of three and four year olds standing patiently in line!

The younger group focused on their pots today.  We transplanted some pansies as well as planting some nastursium seeds.

The kids really enjoy the process of moving the dirt from the large brightly colored tubs into the pots with our colored shovels!

Miss Annie is helping her class take soil directly from the bags and put into the pots as neatly as possible!

 We found a potato!  We grow a lot of potatoes and somehow this one was missed when we harvested them in the Fall!

We also use the cinder blocks to grow at the preschool.  This can only be done successfully in the winter and early spring due to the extreme temperatures here.  The kids are growing lettuces and beans in them.  We were slowed down by several worm sightings, which brings all work to an immediate halt to observe these beneficial creatures in our gardens!

Yes, Spring has sprung at LA Up--La Petite Academy!!

Cheers for now~
Marti Lindsey--The Garden Lady

Winter in the Garden--LA Up at La Petite

 

Welcome 2015

 Winter in the garden may not be as exciting as Spring and Summer gardening, there is still a lot going on in our preschool garden at LA Up.  In February we had brussel sprouts, broccoli, carrots and garlic growing in the recycled shelf in the preschool area.

Also in the preschool area, the elevated raised bed has lettuce, herbs and sugar snap peas going strong.  The kids love to eat the snap peas right off the plant.  You can see from the picture that we have nothing growing in the center of the box.  That is mainly due to the shorter arm span of three and four year olds.  They cannot reach to water, thus the bare spot!

In the LA Up yard, we have a bed of garlic.  There are a few carrots in the foreground.  The other boxes in this yard are growing lettuces, snap peas and the strawberry bed has over wintered well and might start producing again soon!

We harvested some broccoli.  The kids were actually fighting over who got to eat the broccoli!!

They did their best to divide it up fairly.  I prefer to let them work these things out amongst themselves!

In any garden, watering is key.  I found that the best way to ensure adequate watering is to provide watering cans for the kids to use to water.  They really do seem to enjoy the upkeep of their garden beds, even in the winter when the least glamourous things are growing!

Cheers~
Marti

Windbreak--Planting Fill In Trees

Maintaining a Windbreak--Part 1--Filling in the Gaps

Windbreak and new trees on right

We live in the West Antelope Valley, in a transition area from foothills to the Western edge of the Mojave desert.  It is windy out here...I mean really windy.  We regularly have sustained winds of over 30 mph.  Gusts up to 70 mph are not unheard of.  What this means is that an adequate wind break is a must.  A windbreak is essentially a line of trees on the side of your property where the prevailing winds come from.  In our case, it's the Western boarder of our property.

Loading the trees into the truck

We took advantage of a dust mitigation program offered by neighboring Solar facilities, Mid America Solar and S Solar, which offered area residents 10 free trees.  We decided to use these trees to fill in the holes in our windbreak. 

Water delivery

We picked the trees up in mid December and placed them near where we plan to plant them.  Since we have not added irrigation lines or water to the back portion of our property, we have been watering the trees using 20 gallon tubs and 2 gallon buckets run from the back of the truck.  Not the easiest way to water, but it gets the job done.

Fabulous husband getting started

Figure out where your gaps are in the windbreak and decide where to place your tree.  Since the trees are super heavy, it's best to use the container to gauge your placement and the depth of the hole.

Not quite deep enough

Once the hole was deep and wide enough, we added a bit of composted horse manure to feed the tree.  Since the previous owner of our ranch raised thoroughbred Arabians, there is no shortage of this around here!  We added about a gallon of water and then placed measured using the planter to be sure.

Depth of hole equals correct depth to plant

Low tech irrigation

We took the tree out of the container and cut the roots to loosen.  These trees had been in these pots way to long and had become root bound.  It's essential that the tree's roots be able to spread out and a tap root reach the ground water.

Making cuts to the roots to ensure growth.

Now it's time to place the tree in the hole.These weigh over 150 pounds so it took both of us.  We oriented the tree slightly into the prevailing winds and checked to make sure we were satisfied with its placement before filling the hole.

Checking depth and placement

Now it's time to refill the hole and add a support.  You can use any sturdy stick, but living on a ranch, you end up having all sorts of fence posts and rods laying around...just use what you have.

Add a support

Back fill the hole

While filling the hole, after every few feet of soil we added about a gallon of water.  This is to give them a drink as well as help our little trees be successful.  It also helps with settling and lets you know if you have any drainage issues.

Add a gallon of water several times during the fill

Finish back filling the hole

Now that the holes have been back filled, we add about 2-3 gallons of water.  We check drainage and their level to ensure the trees are where we want them.  After the trees are settled in, we will attach the tree to the support post with a piece of cloth to support our tree's growth in the wind.

All done!

So one tree down....nine more to go!!

You might be wondering why I titled this blog post, "Part 1."  The answer to this is that maintaining a windbreak is a twofold process.  What we have been avoiding since we moved here about about a year and a half ago is cutting the dead wood from the existing windbreak trees.  This is a tough one, because even though there are large sections of some trees that are clearly dead, they still provide a break from the wind.  We don't want to remove too much.

Max with our puppies Rudy & Valentino August 2014

Like everything else in a rural setting, it's trial and error.  Living out here also forces you to do a lot of the work yourself.  It's tough to find an expert and if you can, they don't want to drive all the way out here...lol!

For more information on how to do this in your area, check your local county agricultural extension office. 

Hope you enjoyed our windbreak sage, part 1! 

Cheers for now~
Marti